News websites and social media accounts published a photo of four bound and kneeling soldiers, claiming that it was real and that it belonged to Israeli soldiers recently captured in the Gaza Strip. The websites accompanied the photo with the following description: “In pictures: Four Israeli soldiers in the hands of Palestinian resistance fighters in Khan Yunis.”
The accounts also described the photo as showing “four Israeli soldiers held captive by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.”
Kashif verified the image and found it to be fake and generated using artificial intelligence. The image contains several telltale signs, including: the weapon appears to have two barrels facing in opposite directions, one of the soldiers has an unnaturally large foot, and the soldiers’ hands appear to be blurred.
Kashif’s team found that the same image had previously been circulated in October 2024, claiming to show the Lebanese Hezbollah’s Radwan unit capturing an entire group of Israeli occupation army officers and soldiers.
As of the time of preparing this investigation, Hamas had not announced the recent capture of Israeli soldiers in Khan Yunis. Meanwhile, the Qassam Brigades, the movement’s military wing, announced on Tuesday, 24 June 2025, that it had carried out a complex ambush targeting an Israeli force in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. It confirmed that the force “suffered casualties.”
Kashif Israeli-Hebrew affairs team also examined official and well-known Hebrew media outlets and found that they did not mention any information about Hamas capturing Israeli soldiers. The Israeli army, however, acknowledged the killing of an officer and six soldiers, and the wounding of 16 others from the 605th Combat Engineering Battalion, in an ambush in Khan Yunis.
| Sources of Claim | Sources of Verification |
| Al-Ittihad Press Public Post Malak Ahmed Saleh Hietim Yar Abdul Majeed Khalifa Ali Lahmr Saeed Baryali Journalist | Signs that indicate that the image was generated by artificial intelligence: The old publication of the image by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades , Al Jazeera |
